Democrat for Governor Scudder Parker held a press conference Thursday at the brand new Small Dog Electronics store that’s opening this weekend across from University Mall in South Burlington. Chittenden/Franklin County Apple computer users rejoice, eh!

Small Dog owner Don Mayer joined Parker. The topic was “health care reform” or rather the lack of health care reform produced by Republican Gov. Jim Douglas. Mayer, who also is active in Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR), said it’s an accident of history that paying for health care is tied to employment. Mayer the business man said it should be decoupled. And his group said so at the Guv's Health Care Summit in Killington a couple months ago.

“We were invited and we spoke and we talked with people. We were definitely involved in the process. Whether we were heard or not, either by the governor or by the legislature to the extent that we would have liked is questionable. I remember in Killington the governor saying, ‘Yeah, what I heard was healthcare should be decoupled from employment.’

“And then he sat down and forgot about it. I don’t know that he actually heard that. I think he was just sort of repeating what everyone had said.”

Asked if it was a bit late in the race to be raising the health care reform issue, Parker said he has been raising it throughout the campaign while Jim Douglas has been avoiding the issue.

“This is a big and difficult and complex issue to change. And that’s partly why it is hard for the media to grasp it. It doesn’t lend itself to nice tidy sound bites. And what I offer as a candidate for governor, and what I will do as governor is, I will pull people together on that issue. In a sense, that’s a matter of who do you trust and what kind of leadership do you want for the future of the state of Vermont.”

Parker the Democrat has been well behind the incumbent in the polls. From where I stand, Ol’ Scudder just never got going. And Gov. Douglas is a master of the game. Gov. Scissorhands has picked up the endorsements of Independent U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords and the liberal/progressive Brattleboro Reformer (ouch!). When we asked the Scud Missile why he was having such difficulty getting his message out, Parker showed the strain. He did not appreciate the question and fired back this rather terse response:

“I’m not going to have you announce whether my message is getting out or not, Peter. Thank you very much.”

End of press conference.

You know, there's only one winner. Journalism is a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it, right?

This is my 14th Vermont state election. The Parker Campaign remains a mystery to me. If there is a plan, they’ve kept it very, very secret.

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